


different

by Catheeso



Category: CJMind
Genre: Gen, TW: Panic Attacks, TW: cutting, its vent time babey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27697505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catheeso/pseuds/Catheeso
Summary: It used to be different.





	different

It used to be different. When he would bounce his leg uncontrollably because he couldn’t quite figure out how to stay still, his friends would snap at him to quit moving. His siblings would shove him off the couch if he squirmed too much. His mother would put a hand on his leg. His step-dad would give him The Look.

The Look was common. He’d stutter too much, he’d fidget too much, he’d talk too much and too loud, unable to simply wait for the conversation to turn to him. He’s been called impatient his whole life. 

“She’s too hyper,” his sister would complain. “She’s not fun to play with. I just wanna go to my friend’s house alone.”

The first time he had a panic attack was in third grade when he was auditioning for the talent show. He’d frozen on stage with a bunch of second-graders looking at him. He had choked. His throat had closed up and his eyes had burned. He ended up running out of the room, gasping and trying to breathe. When he had described this to his mom, she didn’t understand.

He just sometimes Didn’t Get stuff. He’d interrupt at the wrong time and get scolded. He didn’t understand. No one could just _wait_ for their turn to speak. The words itch under your skin and you just have to get them out. When he told this to his friend, Shawn, Shawn had looked at him, confused. 

That happened often. He’d tell someone something that made sense to him and they’d be confused.

When he gets to know people, he assigns them a colour. Shawn was dark red. Miriam was a bright yellow. Telling people that generally makes them confused. They didn’t _understand_. Colours were important to a person's character. He didn’t know who anybody was without their colour.

Ms. Marissa was a dark grey-brown that made him feel sick. Her smile was sharp as razor blades and her words cut his wrists deeper than any kitchen knife could. She was perfectly content to tell him that he’s faking it and he’s being selfish. 

When they moved to Japan, he immediately set upon making friends. If he has friends, no one will think he’s weird for being jittery. If he acts normal long enough, they won’t leave him, right? 

Chloee’s a grey-pink. Kaia’s a vibrant dark blue. Riley’s a light green. Kali’s a navy blue. It’s hard to remember names but it’s easy to remember their colours. 

Chloee’s like Ms. Marissa. She’s sharp around the corners and cuts you if you get too close. Kaia’s more hidden. They’re smooth on the surface and you could spend hours and hours looking at them, but if you crack them open, they’re filled with jagged spikes.

When he bites his nails nervously, Chloee calls him gross. When he hums, Kaia tells him to be quiet, please. When he suffocates on his own breath, they both look away. Riley’s the only one who says nothing but in a good way. When he moves the whole table jerking his leg, Riley laughs it off and shrugs. 

He likes them. 

Depression is different from the everyday anxiety he experiences. The anxiety that tells him that his winter coat is too heavy for that weather and everyone's judging him. But depression- it’s so different. 

It makes him lay in bed while his anxiety screams at him to be active, to get up. It makes him skip his homework when his anxiety pounds in his head to get up and do the work. It’s like there are two different people in his head, vying for control. 

He wants it to stop. He wants it to stop so bad that he doesn’t realize something’s wrong until he’s standing next to the knives with a suicide note, his hands shaking so bad he almost drops the kitchen knife held tightly in his hand.

When he tells his mom, she looks at him like he had shoved the knife into her chest. 

Dr. Graze is a sterile white mixed with a hint of light blue. She isn’t actually a doctor, but Carter can’t call her anything else with how clean her colour is. She listens to him, she tells him to breathe deeply, she gives him pills. She isn’t like Ms. Marissa. Where Ms. Marissa was a cube that made you bleed if you tried to hold onto it, Dr. Graze is a smooth sphere that bounces when you accidentally drop it.

He doesn’t tell her everything. In fact, at first, he didn’t tell her anything. He made up complete bullshit to try and throw her off. She spent the whole first session wading through his sewer with the grace of a ballerina and a smile so trustworthy it makes him wanna tell her everything.

It’s the same thing with Kaia, initially. He admired them and liked them and _loved_ them. He thought about them when he laid in bed, thinking about their vibrant colour and their nice words. It's his first legitimate crush. 

He spills everything to them and they encourage it. They encourage every thought, every bad habit. He’s so glad to have somebody that understands him he doesn’t realize that he’s cutting himself on their corners every time he talks to them. He doesn’t realize they’re making him bleed out until they abruptly break up with him and he’s left lying in a pool of his own blood. 

Sydney’s grey. She isn’t white like Dr. Graze and she certainly doesn’t pretend to be, but she gives him the bandages and leaves. It’s more than he thinks he deserves but he appreciates it nonetheless.

He doesn’t bandage his wounds until Sequiera comes along, green and pretty and so fresh it’s like taking a deep breath. It lets him relax which is something he had never done before around friends. 

Riley set down the foundation and Chloee destroyed it just to laugh at him. Sequiera and Sydney came over and helped him make it again. 

It’s funny because he looks at Sequiera and thinks he has a crush before it hits him that he doesn’t have a crush, he just didn’t know what real friendship really felt like until then. Riley had been there, but she had felt like she was a ghost and just slightly out of reach. Kali had been there but she was nothing but jagged edges that somehow smoothed themselves out on their own. 

Madison wanted something from him. Christian wanted something from him. Shawn wanted something from him. Chloee wanted something from him. Kaia wanted something from him. 

Miriam was gone. Ava was gone. Riley was gone. But Sydney and Sequiera were here and they were nicer, nicer to him than he ever thought somebody could be to someone like him. 

He doesn’t have a crush on Sequiera, but the way his heart lifts when he looks up at her isn’t fake. It’s a reminder that while the vines of anxiety may entangle him and make it hard to breathe: she’s there. Sydney’s there. 

The thorn bush might be hard to unravel on its own but Riley comes back with a new friend, Ben, and cuts the bush out entirely, looking smugly down at the shriveled-up plant that suddenly didn’t look as intimidating as it used to.

Ben’s an explosive red-orange that reminds him of Shawn in a good way. He laughs with him, not at him. 

Carter can see the colours of the people around him. He can feel the anxiety thrumming through his veins like a poison that's been reduced. He can still hear the taunts of former friends but they’re washed away by his new (and old) ones. 

It used to be different. But it's not so bad now, he supposes.


End file.
